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How to Make This All Suck a Little Less
Maintaining holiday cheer shouldn’t be your burden
“Do you even like turkey?” I asked my husband last night over our dinner of pad thai as we mused out loud about what we’d make for Thanksgiving. The truth is, I don’t. I’m not really a fan of most parts of the traditional Thanksgiving spread. But until that point, it hadn’t occurred to me that this year, we could skip it all: the bird, the stuffing, the sweet potato casserole.
And almost as soon as the thought popped into my brain, I felt guilty. This Thanksgiving will look different than most, sure, but it’s still Thanksgiving.
You, like me, may have already settled with the idea that gathering with friends and family is off the table. And if that’s the case, then you, like me, may assume that the way to ease the pain of this Thanksgiving is to recreate the usual holiday routines as faithfully as possible. But trying to force some sense of normalcy on a very strange day may end up just making things worse.
“It’s like trying to fit a square into a circle,” says Austin-based therapist Grace Dowd. “You can’t fit that exact same warm, fuzzy experience into a pandemic-restricted life, and forcing it will only make you feel worse because then you have the original grief plus the added grief that your new way didn’t work either.”
Instead, Dowd says, it might be better to just admit that, well, Thanksgiving kind of sucks this year — and figure out a realistic way to spend your day instead. Here’s how to make your peace with the reality of the holiday ahead, as far from ideal as it might be.
Feel your feelings
We compound our own suffering when we tell ourselves we shouldn’t feel a certain way, Dowd explains, which means the first step to dealing with any painful experience is to accept whatever emotions you’re experiencing.
“It’s important to acknowledge that, okay, this year is going to look different from years past, and chances…
